Letters Live at Edinburgh International Festival

27th August 2017

Letters penned by James Baldwin, Jimi Hendrix, Yoko Ono and Evelyn Waugh were amongst those brought to life at the Letters Live shows to close the 70th Edinburgh International Festival on Sunday 27th August 2017 at Edinburgh’s King’s Theatre. The star-studded line-up of actors, comedians, musicians, politicians and writers remained a closely guarded secret until the curtain went up for the first show at 7pm in celebration of the art of letter writing, they brought to the stage live performances of correspondences from across the centuries and around the world.

Performers included actors Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ian McShane, Meera Syal, Robert Webb and Harriet Walter, comedian Al Murray and the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon for two performances of Letters Live.

The evening also featured readings of letters written by schoolchildren from Edinburgh who had taken part inBlueprint for the Future, a project that forms part of the International Festival’s year-round work with schools in the city. Inspired byLetters Live, the creative writing and visual art project asks teenagers from secondary schools across Edinburgh to consider how they might impact the future through writing imagined letters from their future selves. The five selected letters were read by Xanthe Harris, Malachy Harris, Stella McGregor, Oscar Bickmore and Grace Bickmore.

The Craigmillar Literacy Trust and Scottish Book Trust were the chosen charities supported through these shows.